The first years of life lay the foundations for a child's future development and learning. Many countries have increased their financial support for provision of early childhood education and care (ECEC) over the past years. More recently, the focus of debate has been shifting from expanding access to affordable ECEC to enhancing its quality. A…

Research Findings: The National Association for the Education of Young Children's guidelines for developmentally appropriate practices (DAP) have been imported and researched by others across the globe. A central issue that has arisen for these international early childhood educators is whether these best practices are sensitive to the…

The purpose of this study was to investigate how early childhood teachers in Korea understand developmentally appropriate practices (DAP) and follow DAP's instructional guidelines. In order to obtain insights for developing "educare," an integrated system for the education and care of young children in Korea, a comparison of early…